The Theory of Moral Sentiments

f those systems which make sentiment the principle of approbation.

Those systems which make sentiment the

principle of approbation may be divided into two

different classes.

I. According to some the principle of approbation

is founded upon a sentiment of a peculiar nature,

upon a particular power of perception exerted by the

mind at the view of certain actions or affections;

some of which affecting this faculty in an agreeable

and others in a disagreeable manner, the former are

stampt with the characters of right, laudable, and

virtuous; the latter with those of wrong, blameable

and vicious. This sentiment being of a peculiar

nature distinct from every other, and the effect of a

particular power of perception, they give it a particular

name, and call it a moral sense.

II. According to others, in order to account for

the principle of approbation, there is no occasion

for supposing any new power of perception which

357had never been heard of before: Nature, they imagine,

acts here, as in all other cases, with the strictest

œconomy, and produces a multitude of effects from

one and the same cause; and sympathy, a power which

has always been taken notice of, and with which the

mind is manifestly endowed, is, they think, sufficient

to account for all the effects ascribed to this peculiar

faculty.

I. Dr. Hutcheson[24] had been at great pains to

prove that the principle of approbation was not

founded on self-love. He had demonstrated too that

it could not arise from any operation of reason. Nothing

remained, he thought, but to suppose it a faculty

of a peculiar kind, with which Nature had endowed

the human mind, in order to produce this one

particular and important effect. When self-love and

reason were both excluded, it did not occur to him

that there was any other known faculty of the mind

which could in any respect answer this purpose.

24. Inquiry concerning Virtue.

This new power of perception he called a moral

sense, and supposed it to be somewhat analogous to

the external senses. As the bodies around us, by

affecting these in a certain manner, appear to possess

the different qualities of sound, taste, odour, colour;

so the various affections of the human mind, by

touching this particular faculty in a certain manner,

appear to possess the different qualities of amiable

and odious, of virtuous and vicious, of right and

wrong.

The various senses or powers of perception,[25] from

which the human mind derives all its simple ideas,

358were, according to this system, of two different kinds,

of which the one were called the direct or antecedent,

the other, the reflex or consequent senses. The direct

senses were those faculties from which the mind

derived the perception of such species of things as

did not presuppose the antecedent perception of any

other. Thus sounds and colours were objects of the

direct senses. To hear a sound or to see a colour does

not presuppose the antecedent perception of any other

quality or object. The reflex or consequent senses,

on the other hand, were those faculties from which

the mind derived the perception of such species of

things as presupposed the antecedent perception of

some other. Thus harmony and beauty were objects

of the reflex senses. In order to perceive the harmony

of a sound, or the beauty of a colour, we must

first perceive the sound or the colour. The moral

sense was considered as a faculty of this kind. That

faculty, which Mr. Locke calls reflection, and from

which he derived the simple ideas of the different

passions and emotions of the human mind, was, according

to Dr. Hutcheson, a direct internal sense.

That faculty again by which we perceived the beauty

or deformity, the virtue or vice of those different

passions and emotions, was a reflex, internal sense.

25. Treatise of the passions.

Dr. Hutcheson endeavoured still further to support

this doctrine, by shewing that it was agreeable to the

analogy of nature, and that the mind was endowed

with a variety of other reflex senses exactly similar to

the moral sense; such as a sense of beauty and deformity

in external objects; a public sense, by which

we sympathize with the happiness or misery of our

359fellow-creatures; a sense of shame and honour, and

a sense of ridicule.

But notwithstanding all the pains which this ingenious

philosopher has taken to prove that the principle

of approbation is founded in a peculiar power

of perception, somewhat analogous to the external

senses, there are some consequences, which he acknowledges

to follow from this doctrine, that will,

perhaps, be regarded by many as a sufficient confutation

of it. The qualities, he allows,[26] which belong

to the objects of any sense, cannot, without the

greatest absurdity, be ascribed to the sense itself. Who

ever thought of calling the sense of seeing black or

white, the sense of hearing loud or low, or the sense

of tasting sweet or bitter? And, according to him,

it is equally absurd to call our moral faculties virtuous

or vicious, morally good or evil. These qualities

belong to the objects of those faculties, not to

the faculties themselves. If any man, therefore, was

so absurdly constituted as to approve of cruelty and

injustice as the highest virtues, and to disapprove of

equity and humanity as the most pitiful vices, such

a constitution of mind might indeed be regarded as

inconvenient both to the individual and to the society,

and likewise as strange, surprising, and unnatural

in itself; but it could not, without the greatest

absurdity, be denominated vicious or morally evil.

26. Illustrations upon the Moral Sense. Sect. 1. p. 237, et seq.

Third Edition.

Yet surely if we saw any man shouting with admiration

and applause at a barbarous and unmerited

execution, which some insolent tyrant had ordered,

360we should not think we were guilty of any great absurdity

in denominating this behaviour vicious and

morally evil in the highest degree, though it expressed

nothing but depraved moral faculties, or an absurd

approbation of this horrid action, as of what was

noble, magnanimous, and great. Our heart, I imagine,

at the sight of such a spectator, would forget

for a while its sympathy with the sufferer, and feel

nothing but horror and detestation, at the thought of

so execrable a wretch. We should abominate him

even more than the tyrant who might be goaded on

by the strong passions of jealousy, fear, and resentment,

and upon that account be more excusable.

But the sentiments of the spectator would appear altogether

without cause or motive, and therefore most

perfectly and completely detestable. There is no

perversion of sentiment or affection which our heart

would be more averse to enter into, or which it would

reject with greater hatred and indignation than one

of this kind; and so far from regarding such a constitution

of mind as being merely something strange

or inconvenient, and not in any respect vicious or

morally evil, we should rather consider it as the very

last and most dreadful stage of moral depravity.

Correct moral sentiments, on the contrary, naturally

appear in some degree laudable and morally

good. The man, whose censure and applause are

upon all occasions suited with the greatest accuracy

to the value or unworthiness of the object, seems to

deserve a degree even of moral approbation. We

admire the delicate precision of his moral sentiments:

they lead our own judgments, and, upon account of

their uncommon and surprising justness, they even

excite our wonder and applause. We cannot indeed

361be always sure that the conduct of such a person

would be in any respect correspondent to the precision

and accuracy of his judgments concerning the

conduct of others. Virtue requires habit and resolution

of mind, as well as delicacy of sentiment;

and unfortunately the former qualities are sometimes

wanting, where the latter is in the greatest perfection.

This disposition of mind, however, though it may

sometimes be attended with imperfections, is incompatible

with any thing that is grossly criminal, and

is the happiest foundation upon which the superstructure

of perfect virtue can be built. There are many

men who mean very well, and seriously purpose to do

what they think their duty, who notwithstanding are

disagreeable on account of the coarseness of their

moral sentiments.

It may be said, perhaps, that though the principle

of approbation is not founded upon any power

of perception that is in any respect analogous to the

external senses, it may still be founded upon a peculiar

sentiment which answers this one particular purpose

and no other. Approbation and disapprobation,

it may be pretended, are certain feelings or

emotions which arise in the mind upon the view of

different characters and actions; and as resentment

might be called a sense of injuries, or gratitude a

sense of benefits, so these may very properly receive

the name of a sense of right and wrong, or of a moral

sense.

But this account of things, though it may not be

liable to the same objections with the foregoing,

is exposed to others which are equally unanswerable.

362First of all, whatever variations any particular

emotion may undergo, it still preserves the general

features which distinguish it to be an emotion of

such a kind, and these general features are always

more striking and remarkable than any variation

which it may undergo in particular cases. Thus anger

is an emotion of a particular kind: and accordingly

its general features are always more distinguishable

than all the variations it undergoes in particular

cases. Anger against a man, is, no doubt,

somewhat different from anger against a woman,

and that again from anger against a child. In each

of those three cases, the general passion of anger receives

a different modification from the particular

character of its object, as may easily be observed by

the attentive. But still the general features of the

passion predominate in all these cases. To distinguish

these, requires no nice observation: a very delicate

attention, on the contrary, is necessary to discover

their variations: every body takes notice of the

former: scarce any body observes the latter. If approbation

and disapprobation, therefore, were, like

gratitude and resentment, emotions of a particular

kind, distinct from every other, we should expect

that in all the variations which either of them might

undergo, it would still retain the general features

which mark it to be an emotion of such a particular

kind, clear, plain, and easily distinguishable. But

in fact it happens quite otherwise. If we attend to

what we really feel when upon different occasions we

either approve or disapprove, we shall find that our

emotion in one case is often totally different from

that in another, and that no common features can

possibly be discovered between them. Thus the approbation

363with which we view a tender, delicate,

and humane sentiment, is quite different from that

with which we are struck by one that appears great,

daring, and magnanimous. Our approbation of

both may, upon different occasions, be perfect and

entire; but we are softened by the one, and we are

elevated by the other, and there is no sort of resemblance

between the emotions which they excite

in us. But, according to that system which I have

been endeavouring to establish, this must necessarily

be the case. As the emotions of the person whom

we approve of, are, in those two cases, quite opposite

to one another, and as our approbation arises

from sympathy with those opposite emotions, what

we feel upon the one occasion, can have no sort of

resemblance to what we feel upon the other. But

this could not happen if approbation consisted in a

peculiar emotion which had nothing in common with

the sentiments we approved of, but which arose at

the view of those sentiments, like any other passion

at the view of its proper object. The same thing

holds true with regard to disapprobation. Our

horror for cruelty has no sort of resemblance to our

contempt for mean-spiritedness. It is quite a different

species of discord which we feel at the view

of those two different vices, between our minds

and those of the person whose sentiments and behaviour

we consider.

Secondly, I have already observed, that not only

the different passions or affections of the human mind

which are approved or disapproved of appear morally

good or evil, but that proper and improper approbation

appear, to our natural sentiments, to be

stampt with the same characters. I would ask,

364therefore, how it is, that, according to this system,

we approve or disapprove of proper or improper

approbation. To this question, there is, I imagine,

but one reasonable answer, which can possibly be

given. It must be said, that when the approbation

with which our neighbour regards the conduct of a

third person coincides with our own, we approve of

his approbation, and consider it as, in some measure,

morally good; and that on the contrary, when it

does not coincide with our own sentiments, we disapprove

of it, and consider it as, in some measure,

morally evil. It must be allowed, therefore, that,

at least in this one case, the coincidence or opposition

of sentiments, between the observer and the person

observed, constitutes moral approbation or disapprobation.

And if it does so in this one case, I would

ask, why not in every other? to what purpose imagine

a new power of perception in order to account

for those sentiments?

Against every account of the principle of approbation,

which makes it depend upon a peculiar sentiment,

distinct from every other, I would object;

that it is strange that this sentiment, which Providence

undoubtedly intended to be the governing

principle of human nature, should hitherto have

been so little taken notice of, as not to have got a

name in any language. The word moral sense is of

very late formation, and cannot yet be considered as

making part of the English tongue. The word approbation

has but within these few years been appropriated

to denote peculiarly any thing of this

kind. In propriety of language we approve of

whatever is entirely to our satisfaction, of the form

of a building, of the contrivance of a machine, of

365the flavour of a dish of meat. The word conscience

does not immediately denote any moral faculty by

which we approve or disapprove. Conscience supposes,

indeed, the existence of some such faculty,

and properly signifies our consciousness of having

acted agreeably or contrary to its directions. When

love, hatred, joy, sorrow, gratitude, resentment, with

so many other passions which are all supposed to be

the subjects of this principle, have made themselves

considerable enough to get titles to know them by,

is it not surprising that the sovereign of them all

should hitherto have been so little heeded, that, a

few philosophers excepted, no body has yet thought

it worth while to bestow a name upon it?

When we approve of any character or action,

the sentiments which we feel, are, according to the

foregoing system, derived from four sources, which

are in some respects different from one another.

First, we sympathize with the motives of the agent;

secondly, we enter into the gratitude of those who

receive the benefit of his actions; thirdly, we observe

that his conduct has been agreeable to the general

rules by which those two sympathies generally

act; and, last of all, when we consider such actions

as making part of a system of behaviour which

tends to promote the happiness either of the individual

or of the society, they appear to derive a beauty

from this utility, not unlike that which we ascribe

to any well contrived machine. After deducting,

in any one particular case, all that must be acknowledged

to proceed from some one or other of these four

principles, I should be glad to know what remains,

and I shall freely allow this overplus to be ascribed

to a moral sense, or to any other peculiar faculty,

366provided any body will ascertain precisely what this

overplus is. It might be expected, perhaps, that

if there was any such peculiar principle, such as

this moral sense is supposed to be, we should feel it,

in some particular cases, separated and detached from

every other, as we often feel joy, sorrow, hope,

and fear, pure and unmixed with any other emotion.

This however, I imagine, cannot even be pretended.

I have never heard any instance alleged in which

this principle could be said to exert itself alone and

unmixed with sympathy or antipathy, with gratitude

or resentment, with the perception of the agreement

or disagreement of any action to an established rule,

or last of all with that general taste for beauty and

order which is excited by inanimated as well as by

animated objects.

II. There is another system which attempts to account

for the origin of our moral sentiments from

sympathy distinct from that which I have been endeavouring

to establish. It is that which places virtue

in utility, and accounts for the pleasure with

which the spectator surveys the utility of any quality

from sympathy with the happiness of those who are

affected by it. This sympathy is different both from

that by which we enter into the motives of the agent,

and from that by which we go along with the gratitude

of the persons who are benefited by his actions.

It is the same principle with that by which we approve

of a well contrived machine. But no machine

can be the object of either of those two last mentioned

sympathies. I have already, in the fourth part of

this discourse, given some account of this system.

367

SECTION IV.

Of the manner in which different authors have treated of the practical rules of morality.

It was observed in the third part of this discourse,

that the rules of justice are the only rules of morality

which are precise and accurate; that those of all the

other virtues are loose, vague, and indeterminate;

that the first may be compared to the rules of grammar;

the others to those which critics lay down for

the attainment of what is sublime and elegant in composition,

and which present us rather with a general

idea of the perfection we ought to aim at, than afford

us any certain and infallible directions for acquiring

it.

As the different rules of morality admit such different

degrees of accuracy, those authors who have

endeavoured to collect and digest them into systems

have done it in two different manners; and one set

has followed thro’ the whole that loose method to

which they were naturally directed by the consideration

of one species of virtues; while another has as

universally endeavoured to introduce into their precepts

that sort of accuracy of which only some of

them are susceptible. The first have wrote like critics,

the second like grammarians.

368I. The first, among whom we may count all the

ancient moralists, have contented themselves with

describing in a general manner the different vices and

virtues, and with pointing out the deformity and

misery of the one disposition as well as the propriety

and happiness of the other, but have not affected

to lay down many precise rules that are to

hold good unexceptionably in all particular cases.

They have only endeavoured to ascertain, as far as

language is capable of ascertaining, first, wherein

consists the sentiment of the heart, upon which

each particular virtue is founded, what sort of internal

feeling or emotion it is which constitutes the

essence of friendship, of humanity, of generosity,

of justice, of magnanimity, and of all the other

virtues, as well as of the vices which are opposed

to them: and, secondly, What is the general way of

acting, the ordinary tone and tenour of conduct to

which each of those sentiments would direct us, or

how it is that a friendly, a generous, a brave, a just,

and a humane man, would, upon ordinary occasions,

chuse to act.

To characterize the sentiment of the heart, upon

which each particular virtue is founded, though it

requires both a delicate and accurate pencil, is a talk,

however, which may be executed with some degree

of exactness. It is impossible, indeed, to express all

the variations which each sentiment either does or

ought to undergo, according to every possible variation

of circumstances. They are endless, and language

wants names to mark them by. The sentiment

of friendship, for example, which we feel for

an old man is different from that which we feel for

369a young: that which we entertain for an austere

man different from that which we feel for one of

softer and gentler manners: and that again from

what we feel for one of gay vivacity and spirit. The

friendship which we conceive for a man is different

from that with which a woman affects us, even

where there is no mixture of any grosser passion.

What author could enumerate and ascertain these

and all the other infinite varieties which this sentiment

is capable of undergoing? But still the general

sentiment of friendship and familiar attachment

which is common to them all, may be ascertained with

a sufficient degree of accuracy. The picture which is

drawn of it, though it will always be in many respects

incomplete, may, however, have such a resemblance

as to make us know the original when we meet with

it, and even distinguish it from other sentiments to

which it has a considerable resemblance, such as good-will,

respect, esteem, admiration.

To describe, in a general manner, what is the ordinary

way of acting to which each virtue would

prompt us, is still more easy. It is, indeed, scarce

possible to describe the internal sentiment or emotion

upon which it is founded, without doing something

of this kind. It is impossible by language to express,

if I may say so, the invisible features of all

the different modifications of passion as they show

themselves within. There is no other way of marking

and distinguishing them from one another, but

by describing the effects which they produce without,

the alterations which they occasion in the

countenance, in the air and external behaviour, the

resolutions they suggest, the actions they prompt to.

It is thus that Cicero, in the first book of his Offices,

370endeavours to direct us to the practice of the

four cardinal virtues, and that Aristotle in the practical

parts of his Ethics, points out to us the different

habits by which he would have us regulate our

behaviour, such as liberality, magnificence, magnanimity,

and even jocularity and good humour, qualities,

which that indulgent philosopher has thought

worthy of a place in the catalogue of the virtues,

though the lightness of that approbation which we

naturally bestow upon them, should not seem to entitle

them to so venerable a name.

Such works present us with agreeable and lively

pictures of manners. By the vivacity of their descriptions

they inflame our natural love of virtue,

and increase our abhorrence of vice: by the justness

as well as delicacy of their observations they

may often help both to correct and to ascertain our

natural sentiments with regard to the propriety of

conduct, and suggesting many nice and delicate attentions,

form us to a more exact justness of behaviour,

than what, without such instruction, we

should have been apt to think of. In treating of

the rules of morality, in this manner, consists the

science which is properly called Ethics, a science,

which though like criticism, it does not admit of the

most accurate precision, is, however, both highly useful

and agreeable. It is of all others the most susceptible

of the embellishments of eloquence, and by means

of them of bestowing, if that be possible, a new importance

upon the smallest rules of duty. Its precepts,

when thus dressed and adorned, are capable

of producing upon the flexibility of youth, the

noblest and most lasting impressions, and as they

fall in with the natural magnanimity of that generous

371age, they are able to inspire, for a time at least,

the most heroic resolutions, and thus tend both to

establish and confirm the best and most useful habits

of which the mind of man is susceptible. Whatever

precept and exhortation can do to animate us to

the practice of virtue, is done by this science delivered

in this manner.

II. The second set of moralists, among whom we

may count all the casuists of the middle and latter

ages of the christian church, as well as all those who

in this and in the preceding century have treated of

what is called natural jurisprudence, do not content

themselves with characterizing in this general manner

that tenour of conduct which they would recommend

to us, but endeavour to lay down exact

and precise rules for the direction of every circumstance

of our behaviour. As justice is the only virtue

with regard to which such exact rules can properly

be given; it is this virtue, that has chiefly fallen

under the consideration of those two different sets of

writers. They treat of it, however, in a very different

manner.

Those who write upon the principles of jurisprudence,

consider only what the person to whom the

obligation is due, ought to think himself entitled to

exact by force; what every impartial spectator would

approve of him for exacting, or what a judge or

arbiter, to whom he had submitted his case, and

who had undertaken to do him justice, ought to oblige

the other person to suffer or to perform. The casuists,

on the other hand, do not so much examine

what it is, that might properly be exacted by force,

as what it is, that the person who owes the obligation

372ought to think himself bound to perform from the

most sacred and scrupulous regard to the general

rules of justice, and from the most conscientious

dread, either of wronging his neighbour, or of violating

the integrity of his own character. It is the

end of jurisprudence to prescribe rules for the decisions

of judges and arbiters. It is the end of casuistry

to prescribe rules for the conduct of a good

man. By observing all the rules of jurisprudence,

supposing them ever so perfect, we should deserve

nothing but to be free from external punishment.

By observing those of casuistry, supposing them such

as they ought to be, we should be entitled to considerable

praise by the exact and scrupulous delicacy

of our behaviour.

It may frequently happen that a good man ought

to think himself bound, from a sacred and conscientious

regard to the general rules of justice to perform

many things which it would be the highest injustice

to extort from him, or for any judge or arbiter to

impose on him by force. To give a trite example;

a highwayman, by the fear of death, obliges a traveller

to promise him a certain sum of money.

Whether such a promise, extorted in this manner by

unjust force, ought to be regarded as obligatory, is a

question that has been very much debated.

If we consider it merely as a question of jurisprudence,

the decision can admit of no doubt. It

would be absurd to suppose that the highwayman

can be entitled to use force to constrain the other to

perform. To extort the promise was a crime which

deserved the highest punishment, and to extort the

performance would only be adding a new crime to

373the former. He can complain of no injury who has

been only deceived by the person by whom he might

justly have been killed. To suppose that a judge

ought to enforce the obligation of such promises, or

that the magistrate ought to allow them to sustain

an action at law, would be the most ridiculous of all

absurdities. If we consider this question, therefore,

as a question of jurisprudence, we can be at no loss

about the decision.

But if we consider it as a question of casuistry,

it will not be so easily determined. Whether a good

man, from a conscientious regard to that most sacred

rule of justice, which commands the observance of

all serious promises, would not think himself bound

to perform, is at least much more doubtful. That

no regard is due to the disappointment of the wretch

who brings him into this situation, that no injury is

done to the robber, and consequently that nothing

can be extorted by force, will admit of no sort of

dispute. But whether some regard is not, in this

case, due to his own dignity and honour, to the inviolable

sacredness of that part of his character

which makes him reverence the law of truth, and

abhor every thing that approaches to treachery and

falsehood, may, perhaps, more reasonably be made

a question. The casuists accordingly are greatly divided

about it. One party, with whom we may

count Cicero among the ancients, among the moderns,

Puffendorf, Barbeyrac his commentator, and

above all the late Dr. Hutcheson, one who in most

cases was by no means a loose casuist, determine,

without any hesitation, that no sort of regard is due

to any such promise, and that to think otherwise is

374mere weakness and superstition. Another party,

among whom we may reckon [27]some of the ancient

fathers of the church, as well as some very eminent

modern casuists, have been of another opinion, and

have judged all such promises obligatory.

27. St. Augustine, la Placette.

If we consider the matter according to the common

sentiments of mankind, we shall find that some

regard would be thought due even to a promise of

this kind; but that it is impossible to determine how

much, by any general rule that will apply to all cases

without exception. The man who was quite frank

and easy in making promises of this kind, and who

violated them with as little ceremony, we should not

choose for our friend and companion. A gentleman

who should promise a highwayman five pounds and

not perform, would incur some blame. If the sum

promised, however, was very great, it might be

more doubtful, what was proper to be done. If it

was such, for example, that the payment of it would

entirely ruin the family of the promiser, if it was so

great as to be sufficient for promoting the most

useful purposes, it would appear in some measure

criminal, at least extremely improper, to throw

it, for the sake of a punctilio, into such worthless

hands. The man who should beggar himself,

or who should throw away an hundred

thousand pounds, though he could afford that

vast sum, for the sake of observing such a parole

with a thief, would appear to the common sense of

mankind, absurd and extravagant in the highest degree.

Such profusion would seem inconsistent with

his duty, with what he owed both to himself and

375others, and what, therefore, regard, to a promise extorted

in this manner, could by no means authorize.

To fix, however, by any precise rule, what degree

of regard ought to be paid to it, or what might be

the greatest sum which could be due from it, is evidently

impossible. This would vary according to

the characters of the persons, according to their circumstances,

according to the solemnity of the promise,

and even according to the incidents of the rencounter:

and if the promiser had been treated with a great

deal of that sort of gallantry, which is sometimes to

be met with in persons of the most abandoned characters,

more would seem due than upon other occasions.

It may be said in general, that exact propriety

requires the observance of all such promises, whenever

it is not inconsistent with some other duties that

are more sacred; such as regard to the public interest,

to those whom gratitude, whom natural affection,

or whom the laws of proper beneficence should

prompt us to provide for. But, as was formerly

taken notice of, we have no precise rules to determine

what external actions are due from a regard to such

motives, nor, consequently, when it is that those

virtues are inconsistent with the observance of such

promises.

It is to be observed, however, that whenever such

promises are violated, though for the most necessary

reasons, it is always with some degree of dishonour

to the person who made them. After they are made,

we may be convinced of the impropriety of observing

them. But still there is some fault in having

made them. It is at least a departure from the

highest and noblest maxims of magnanimity and honour.

376A brave man ought to die, rather than make

a promise which he can neither keep without folly,

nor violate without ignominy. For some degree of

ignominy always attends a situation of this kind.

Treachery and falsehood are vices so dangerous, so

dreadful, and, at the same time, such as may so easily,

and, upon many occasions, so safely be indulged, that

we are more jealous of them than of almost any

other. Our imagination therefore attaches the idea

of shame to all violations of faith, in every circumstance

and in every situation. They resemble, in

this respect, the violations of chastity in the fair sex,

a virtue of which, for the like reasons, we are excessively

jealous; and our sentiments are not more delicate

with regard to the one, than with regard to the

other. Breach of chastity dishonours irretrievably.

No circumstances, no solicitation can excuse it; no

sorrow, no repentance atone for it. We are so nice

in this respect that even a rape dishonours, and the

innocence of the mind cannot, in our imagination,

wash out the pollution of the body. It is the same

case with the violation of faith, when it has been solemnly

pledged, even to the most worthless of mankind.

Fidelity is so necessary a virtue, that we apprehend

it in general to be due even to those to whom

nothing else is due, and whom we think it lawful to

kill and destroy. It is to no purpose that the person

who has been guilty of the breach of it, urges that he

promised in order to save his life, and that he broke

his promise because it was inconsistent with some

other respectable duty to keep it. These circumstances

may alleviate, but cannot entirely wipe out

his dishonour. He appears to have been guilty of

an action with which, in the imaginations of men,

some degree of shame is inseparably connected. He

377has broke a promise which he had solemnly averred

he would maintain; and his character, if not irretrievably

stained and polluted, has at least a ridicule

affixed to it, which it will be very difficult entirely

to efface; and no man, I imagine, who had gone

through an adventure of this kind, would be fond of

telling the story.

This instance may serve to show wherein consists

the difference between casuistry and jurisprudence,

even when both of them consider the obligations of

the general rules of justice.

But though this difference be real and essential,

though those two sciences propose quite different

ends, the sameness of the subject has made such a

similarity between them, that the greater part of authors

whose professed design was to treat of jurisprudence,

have determined the different questions

they examine, sometimes according to the principles

of that science, and sometimes according to those of

casuistry, without distinguishing, and, perhaps, without

being themselves aware when they did the one,

and when the other.

The doctrine of the casuists, however, is by no

means confined to the consideration of what a conscientious

regard to the general rules of justice, would

demand of us. It embraces many other parts of

Christian and moral duty. What seems principally

to have given occasion to the cultivation of this

species of science was the custom of auricular confession,

introduced by the Roman Catholic superstition,

in times of barbarism and ignorance. By that

378institution, the most secret actions, and even the

thoughts of every person, which could be suspected

of receding in the smallest degree from the rules of

Christian purity, were to be revealed to the confessor.

The confessor informed his penitents whether, and in

what respect they had violated their duty, and what

penance it behoved them to undergo, before he

could absolve them in the name of the offended

Deity.

The consciousness, or even the suspicion of having

done wrong, is a load upon every mind, and is accompanied

with anxiety and terror in all those who

are not hardened by long habits of iniquity. Men,

in this, as in all other distresses, are naturally eager to

disburthen themselves of the oppression which they

feel upon their thoughts, by unbosoming the agony

of their mind to some person whose secrecy and discretion

they can confide in. The shame, which they

suffer from this acknowledgment, is fully compensated

by that alleviation of their uneasiness which

the sympathy of their confident seldom fails to occasion.

It relieves them to find that they are not altogether

unworthy of regard, and that however their

past conduct may be censured, their present disposition

is at least approved of, and is perhaps sufficient

to compensate the other, at least to maintain them in

some degree of esteem with their friend. A numerous

and artful clergy had, in those times of superstition,

insinuated themselves into the confidence of

almost every private family. They possessed all the

little learning which the times could afford, and their

manners, though in many respects rude and disorderly,

were polished and regular compared with those

of the age they lived in. They were regarded, therefore,

379not only as the great directors of all religious,

but of all moral duties. Their familiarity gave reputation

to whoever was so happy as to possess it,

and every mark of their disapprobation stamped the

deepest ignominy upon all who had the misfortune

to fall under it. Being considered as the great judges

of right and wrong, they were naturally consulted

about all scruples that occurred, and it was reputable

for any person to have it known that he made those

holy men the confidents of all such secrets, and took

no important or delicate step in his conduct without

their advice and approbation. It was not difficult

for the clergy, therefore, to get it established as a general

rule, that they should be entrusted with what

it had already become fashionable to entrust them,

and with what they generally would have been entrusted

though no such rule had been established.

To qualify themselves for confessors became thus a

necessary part of the study of churchmen and divines,

and they were thence led to collect what are called

cases of conscience, nice and delicate situations, in

which it is hard to determine whereabouts the propriety

of conduct may lie. Such works, they imagined,

might be of use both to the directors of consciences

and to those who were to be directed; and

hence the origin of books of casuistry.

The moral duties which fell under the consideration

of the casuists were chiefly those which can, in

some measure at least, be circumscribed within general

rules, and of which the violation is naturally attended

with some degree of remorse and some dread

of suffering punishment. The design of that institution

which gave occasion to their works, was to appease

those terrors of conscience which attend upon

380the infringement of such duties. But it is not every

virtue of which the defect is accompanied with any

very severe compunctions of this kind, and no man

applies to his confessor for absolution, because he did

not perform the most generous, the most friendly,

or the most magnanimous action which, in his circumstances,

it was possible to perform. In failures

of this kind, the rule that is violated is commonly

not very determinate, and is generally of such a nature

too, that though the observance of it might entitle

to honour and reward, the violation seems to expose

to no positive blame, censure, or punishment.

The exercise of such virtues the casuists seem to have

regarded as a sort of works of supererogation, which

could not be very strictly enacted, and which it was

therefore unnecessary for them to treat of.

The breaches of moral duty, therefore, which

came before the tribunal of the confessor, and upon

that account fell under the cognizance of the casuists,

were chiefly of three different kinds.

First and principally, breaches of the rules of

justice. The rules here are all express and positive,

and the violation of them is naturally attended

with the consciousness of deserving, and the dread

of suffering punishment both from God and man.

Secondly, breaches of the rules of chastity. These

in all grosser instances are real breaches of the rules

of justice, and no person can be guilty of them without

doing the most unpardonable injury to some

other. In smaller instances, when they amount only

to a violation of those exact decorums which ought

381to be observed in the conversation of the two sexes,

they cannot indeed justly be considered as violations

of the rules of justice. They are generally, however,

violations of a pretty plain rule, and, at

least in one of the sexes, tend to bring ignominy upon

the person who has been guilty of them, and consequently

to be attended in the scrupulous with some

degree of shame and contrition of mind.

Thirdly, breaches of the rules of veracity. The

violation of truth, it is to be observed, is not always

a breach of justice, though it is so upon many occasions,

and consequently cannot always expose to any

external punishment. The vice of common lying,

though a most miserable meanness, may frequently

do hurt to no person, and in this case no claim of

vengeance or satisfaction can be due either to the

persons imposed upon, or to others. But though

the violation of truth is not always a breach of justice,

it is always a breach of a very plain rule, and

what naturally tends to cover with shame the person

who has been guilty of it. The great pleasure of

conversation, and indeed of society, arises from a

certain correspondence of sentiments and opinions,

from a certain harmony of minds, which like so

many musical instruments coincide and keep time

with one another. But this most delightful harmony

cannot be obtained unless there is a free communication

of sentiments and opinions. We all desire,

upon this account, to feel how each other is affected,

to penetrate into each other’s bosoms, and to observe

the sentiments and affections which really subsist

there. The man who indulges us in this natural passion,

who invites us into his heart, who, as it were,

sets open the gates of his breast to us, seems to exercise

382a species of hospitality more delightful than any

other. No man, who is in ordinary good temper,

can fail of pleasing, if he has the courage to utter

his real sentiments as he feels them, and because he

feels them. It is this unreserved sincerity which renders

even the prattle of a child agreeable. How

weak and imperfect soever the views of the open-hearted,

we take pleasure to enter into them, and endeavour,

as much as we can, to bring down our own

understanding to the level of their capacities, and to

regard every subject in the particular light in which

they appear to have considered it. This passion to

discover the real sentiments of others is naturally so

strong, that it often degenerates into a troublesome

and impertinent curiosity to pry into those secrets of

our neighbours which they have very justifiable reasons

for concealing, and, upon many occasions, it

requires prudence and a strong sense of propriety to

govern this, as well as all the other passions of human

nature, and to reduce it to that pitch which any

impartial spectator can approve of. To disappoint

this curiosity, however, when it is kept within proper

bounds, and aims at nothing which there can be

any just reason for concealing, is equally disagreeable

in its turn. The man who eludes our most innocent

questions, who gives no satisfaction to our most inoffensive

inquiries, who plainly wraps himself up in

impenetrable obscurity, seems, as it were, to build a

wall about his breast. We run forward to get within

it, with all the eagerness of harmless curiosity, and

feel ourselves all at once pushed back with the rudest

and most offensive violence. If to conceal is so disagreeable,

to attempt to deceive us is still more disgusting,

even though we could possibly suffer nothing

by the success of the fraud. If we see that our

383companion wants to impose upon us, if the sentiments

and opinions which he utters appear evidently

not to be his own, let them be ever so fine, we can

derive no sort of entertainment from them; and if

something of human nature did not now and then

transpire through all the covers which falsehood and

affectation are capable of wrapping around it, a puppet

of wood would be altogether as pleasant a companion

as a person who never spoke as he was affected.

No man ever deceives, with regard to the most insignificant

matters, who is not conscious of doing something

like an injury to those he converses with; and

who does not inwardly blush and shrink back with

shame and confusion even at the secret thought of a

detection. Breach of veracity, therefore, being always

attended with some degree of remorse and self-condemnation,

naturally fell under the cognizance

of the casuists.

The chief subjects of the works of the casuists,

therefore, were the conscientious regard that is due

to the rules of justice; how far we ought to respect

the life and property of our neighbour; the duty of

restitution; the laws of chastity and modesty, and

wherein consisted what, in their language, are called

the sins of concupiscence: the rules of veracity, and

the obligation of oaths, promises, and contracts of

all kinds.

It may be said in general of the works of the casuists

that they attempted, to no purpose, to direct

by precise rules what belongs to feeling and sentiment

only to judge of. How is it possible to ascertain by

rules the exact point at which, in every case, a delicate

sense of justice begins to run into a frivolous and

384weak scrupulosity of conscience? When it is that secrecy

and reserve begin to grow into dissimulation?

How far an agreeable irony may be carried, and at

what precise point it begins to degenerate into a detestable

lie? What is the highest pitch of freedom

and ease of behaviour which can be regarded as

graceful and becoming, and when it is that it first

begins to run into a negligent and thoughtless licentiousness?

With regard to all such matters, what

would hold good in any one case would scarce do so

exactly in any other, and what constitutes the propriety

and happiness of behaviour varies in every case

with the smallest variety of situation. Books of casuistry,

therefore, are generally as useless as they are

commonly tiresome. They could be of little use to

one who should consult them upon occasion, even

supposing their decisions to be just; because, notwithstanding

the multitude of cases collected in them,

yet upon account of the still greater variety of possible

circumstances, it is a chance, if among all those

cases there be found one exactly parallel to that under

consideration. One, who is really anxious to do his

duty, must be very weak, if he can imagine that

he has much occasion for them; and with regard to

one who is negligent of it, the style of those writings

is not such as is likely to awaken him to more attention.

None of them tend to animate us to what is

generous and noble. None of them tend to soften

us to what is gentle and humane. Many of them,

on the contrary, tend rather to teach us to chicane

with our own consciences, and by their vain subtilties

serve to authorize innumerable evasive refinements

with regard to the most essential articles of our

duty. That frivolous accuracy which they attempted

to introduce into subjects which do not admit of

385it, almost necessarily betrayed them into those dangerous

errors, and at the same time rendered their

works dry and disagreeable, abounding in abstruse

and metaphysical distinctions, but incapable of exciting

in the heart any of those emotions which it is

the principal use of books of morality to excite.

The two useful parts of moral philosophy, therefore,

are Ethics and Jurisprudence: casuistry ought

to be rejected altogether, and the ancient moralists

appear to have judged much better, who, in treating

of the same subjects, did not affect any such nice

exactness, but contented themselves with describing,

in a general manner, what is the sentiment upon

which justice, modesty, and veracity are founded,

and what is the ordinary way of acting to which those

virtues would commonly prompt us.

Something, indeed, not unlike the doctrine of

the casuists, seems to have been attempted by several

philosophers. There is something of this kind

in the third book of Cicero’s Offices, where he endeavours

like a casuist to give rules for our conduct

in many nice cases, in which it is difficult to determine

whereabouts the point of propriety may lie. It

appears too, from many passages in the same book,

that several other philosophers had attempted something

of the same kind before him. Neither he nor

they, however, appear to have aimed at giving a

complete system of this sort, but only meant to show

how situations may occur, in which it is doubtful,

whether the highest propriety of conduct consists in

observing or in receding from what, in ordinary

cases, are the rules of duty.

386Every system of positive law may be regarded as

a more or less imperfect attempt towards a system

of natural jurisprudence, or towards an enumeration

of the particular rules of justice. As the violation of

justice is what men will never submit to from one

another, the public magistrate is under a necessity of

employing the power of the commonwealth to enforce

the practice of this virtue. Without this precaution,

civil society would become a scene of bloodshed and

disorder, every man revenging himself at his own

hand whenever he fancied he was injured. To prevent

the confusion which would attend upon every

man’s doing justice to himself, the magistrate, in all

governments that have acquired any considerable authority,

undertakes to do justice to all, and promises

to hear and to redress every complaint of injury.

In all well-governed states too, not only judges are

appointed for determining the controversies of individuals,

but rules are prescribed for regulating the

decisions of those judges; and these rules are, in

general, intended to coincide with those of natural

justice. It does not, indeed, always happen that

they do so in every instance. Sometimes what is

called the constitution of the state, that is, the interest

of the government; sometimes of the interest

of particular orders of men who tyrannize the

government, warp the positive laws of the country

from what natural justice would prescribe. In some

countries, the rudeness and barbarism of the people

hinder the natural sentiments of justice from arriving

at that accuracy and precision which, in more civilized

nations, they naturally attain to. Their laws

are, like their manners, gross and rude and undistinguishing.

In other countries the unfortunate

constitution of their courts of judicature hinders any

regular system of jurisprudence from ever establishing

387itself among them, though the improved manners

of the people may be such as would admit of the

most accurate. In no country do the decisions of

positive law coincide exactly, in every case, with

the rules which the natural sense of justice would

dictate. Systems of positive law, therefore, though

they deserve the greatest authority, as the records of

the sentiments of mankind in different ages and nations,

yet can never be regarded as accurate systems

of the rules of natural justice.

It might have been expected that the reasonings

of lawyers, upon the different imperfections and improvements

of the laws of different countries, should

have given occasion to an inquiry into what were the

natural rules of justice independent of all positive

institution. It might have been expected that these

reasonings should have led them to aim at establishing

a system of what might properly be called natural

jurisprudence, or a theory of the general principles

which ought to run through and be the foundation

of the laws of all nations. But tho’ the reasonings

of lawyers did produce something of this

kind, and though no man has treated systematically

of the laws of any particular country, without intermixing

in his work many observations of this sort;

it was very late in the world before any such general

system was thought of, or before the philosophy of

law was treated of by itself, and without regard to

the particular institutions of any one nation. In none

of the ancient moralists, do we find any attempt towards

a particular enumeration of the rules of justice.

Cicero in his Offices, and Aristotle in his Ethics,

treat of justice in the same general manner in which

they treat of all the other virtues. In the laws of

388Cicero and Plato, where we might naturally have expected

some attempts towards an enumeration of those

rules of natural equity, which ought to be enforced by

the positive laws of every country, there is however,

nothing of this kind. Their laws are laws of police,

not of justice. Grotius seems to have been the first,

who attempted to give the world any thing like a

system of those principles which ought to run through,

and be the foundation of the laws of all nations; and

his treatise of the laws of war and peace, with all

its imperfections, is perhaps at this day the most

complete work that has yet been given upon this

subject. I shall in another discourse endeavour to

give an account of the general principles of law and

government, and of the different revolutions they

have undergone in the different ages and periods of

society, not only in what concerns justice, but in

what concerns police, revenue, and arms, and whatever

else is the object of law. I shall not, therefore,

at present enter into any further detail concerning the

history of jurisprudence.

THE END.

389

CONSIDERATIONS

Concerning the FIRST

FORMATION OF LANGUAGES,

AND THE

Different Genius of original and compounded LANGUAGES.

The assignation of particular names, to denote

particular objects, that is, the institution of nouns

substantive, would, probably, be one of the first

steps towards the formation of language. Two

savages, who had never been taught to speak, but

had been bred up remote from the societies of men,

would naturally begin to form that language by

which they would endeavour to make their mutual

wants intelligible to each other, by uttering certain

sounds, whenever they meant to denote certain objects.

Those objects only which were most familiar to them,

and which they had most frequent occasion to mention,

would have particular names assigned to them.

The particular cave whose covering sheltered them

from the weather, the particular tree whose fruit

relieved their hunger, the particular fountain whose

water allayed their thirst, would first be denoted by

the words cave, tree, fountain, or by whatever other

390appellations they might think proper, in that primitive

jargon, to mark them. Afterwards, when the

more enlarged experience of these savages had led

them to observe, and their necessary occasions

obliged them to make mention of, other caves, and

other trees, and other fountains, they would naturally

bestow, upon each of those new objects, the

same name, by which they had been accustomed to

express the similar object they were first acquainted

with. The new objects had none of them any name

of its own, but each of them exactly resembled another

object, which had such an appellation. It was

impossible that those savages could behold the new

objects, without recollecting the old ones; and the

name of the old ones, to which the new bore so close

a resemblance. When they had occasion, therefore,

to mention, or to point out to each other, any of the

new objects, they would naturally utter the name of

the correspondent old one, of which the idea could not

fail, at that instant, to present itself to their memory

in the strongest and liveliest manner. And thus,

those words, which were originally the proper names

of individuals, would each of them insensibly become

the common name of a multitude. A child that is

just learning to speak, calls every person who comes

to the house its papa or its mama; and thus bestows

upon the whole species those names which it had been

taught to apply to two individuals. I have known a

clown, who did not know the proper name of the river

which ran by his own door. It was the river, he

said, and he never heard any other name for it.

His experience, it seems, had not led him to observe

any other river. The general word river, therefore,

was, it is evident, in his acceptance of it, a

proper name, signifying an individual object. If this

391person had been carried to another river, would he

not readily have called it a river? Could we suppose

any person living on the banks of the Thames

so ignorant, as not to know the general word river,

but to be acquainted only with the particular word

Thames, if he was brought to any other river, would

he not readily call it a Thames? This, in reality, is

no more than what they, who are well acquainted

with the general word, are very apt to do. An

Englishman, describing any great river which he may

have seen in some foreign country, naturally says,

that it is another Thames. The Spaniards, when

they first arrived upon the coast of Mexico, and observed

the wealth, populousness, and habitations of

that fine country, so much superior to the savage nations

which they had been visiting for some time before,

cried out, that it was another Spain. Hence it

was called New Spain; and this name has stuck to

that unfortunate country ever since. We say, in the

same manner, of a hero, that he is an Alexander; of

an orator, that he is a Cicero; of a philosopher, that

he is a Newton. This way of speaking, which the

grammarians call an Antonomasia, and which is still

extremely common, though now not at all necessary,

demonstrates how much mankind are naturally disposed

to give to one object the name of any other,

which nearly resembles it, and thus to denominate a

multitude, by what originally was intended to express

an individual.

It is this application of the name of an individual

to a great multitude of objects, whose resemblance

naturally recalls the idea of that individual, and of

the name which expresses it, that seems originally to

have given occasion to the formation of those classes

392and assortments, which, in the schools, are called

genera and species, and of which the ingenious and

eloquent M. Rousseau of Geneva[28], finds himself

so much at a loss to account for the origin. What

constitutes a species is merely a number of objects,

bearing a certain degree of resemblance to one another,

and on that account denominated by a single

appellation, which may be applied to express any

one of them.

28. Origine de l’Inegalité. Partie premiere, p. 376, 377,

Edition d’Amsterdam, des Oeuvres diverses de J. J. Rousseau.

When the greater part of objects had thus been arranged

under their proper classes and assortments,

distinguished by such general names, it was impossible

that the greater part of that almost infinite number

of individuals, comprehended under each particular

assortment or species, could have any peculiar or

proper names of their own, distinct from the general

name of the species. When there was occasion,

therefore, to mention any particular object, it often

became necessary to distinguish it from the other objects

comprehended under the same general name,

either, first, by its peculiar qualities; or, secondly,

by the peculiar relation which it stood in to some

other things. Hence the necessary origin of two other

sets of words, of which the one should express quality;

the other relation.

Nouns adjective are the words which express quality

considered as qualifying, or, as the schoolmen

say, in concrete with, some particular subject. Thus

the word green expresses a certain quality considered

as qualifying, or as in concrete with, the particular

393subject to which it may be applied. Words of this

kind, it is evident, may serve to distinguish particular

objects from others comprehended under the same

general appellation. The words green tree, for

example, might serve to distinguish a particular tree

from others that were withered or blasted.

Prepositions are the words which express relation

considered, in the same manner, in concrete with the

co-relative object. Thus the prepositions of, to, for,

with, by, above, below, &c. denote some relation subsisting

between the objects expressed by the words

between which the prepositions are placed; and they

denote that this relation is considered in concrete with

the co-relative object. Words of this kind serve to

distinguish particular objects from others of the same

species, when those particular objects cannot be so

properly marked out by any peculiar qualities of

their own. When we say, the green tree of the meadow,

for example, we distinguish a particular tree, not

only by the quality which belongs to it, but by the

relation which it stands in to another object.

As neither quality nor relation can exist in abstract,

it is natural to suppose that the words which denote

them considered in concrete, the way in which we

always see them subsist, would be of much earlier

invention, than those which express them considered

in abstract, the way in which we never see them subsist.

The words green and blue would, in all probability,

be sooner invented than the words greenness

and blueness; the words above and below, than the

words superiority and inferiority. To invent words

of the latter kind requires a much greater effort of

394abstraction than to invent those of the former. It is

probable, therefore, that such abstract terms would

be of much later institution. Accordingly, their

etymologies generally show that they are so, they

being generally derived from others that are concrete.

But though the invention of nouns adjective be

much more natural than that of the abstract nouns

substantive derived from them, it would still, however,

require a considerable degree of abstraction and

generalization. Those, for example, who first invented

the words, green, blue, red, and the other

names of colours, must have observed and compared

together a great number of objects, must have remarked

their resemblances and dissimilitudes in respect

of the quality of colour, and must have arranged

them, in their own minds, into different

classes and assortments, according to those resemblances

and dissimilitudes. An adjective is by nature

a general, and in some measure, an abstract word,

and necessarily presupposes the idea of a certain species

or assortment of things, to all of which it is

equally applicable. The word green could not, as we

were supposing might be the case of the word cave,

have been originally the name of an individual, and

afterwards have become, by what grammarians call

an Antonomasia the name of a species. The word

green denoting, not the name of a substance, but the

peculiar quality of a substance, must from the very

first have been a general word, and considered as

equally applicable to any other substance possessed

of the same quality. The man who first distinguished

a particular object by the epithet of green, must have

observed other objects that were not green, from

395which he meant to separate it by this appellation.

The institution of this name, therefore, supposes

comparison. It likewise supposes some degree of abstraction.

The person who first invented this appellation

must have distinguished the quality from the

object to which it belonged, and must have conceived

the object as capable of subsisting without the quality.

The invention, therefore, even of the simplest

nouns adjective, must have required more metaphysics

than we are apt to be aware of. The different

mental operations, of arrangement or classing, of

comparison, and of abstraction, must all have

been employed, before even the names of the different

colours, the least metaphysical of all nouns adjective,

could be instituted. From all which I infer,

that when languages were beginning to be formed,

nouns adjective would by no means be the words of

the earliest invention.

There is another expedient for denoting the different

qualities of different substances, which as it requires

no abstraction, nor any conceived separation

of the quality from the subject, seems more natural

than the invention of nouns adjective, and which,

upon this account, could hardly fail, in the first

formation of language, to be thought of before them.

This expedient is to make some variation upon the

noun substantive itself, according to the different qualities

which it is endowed with. Thus, in many languages,

the qualities both of sex and of the want of

sex, are expressed by different terminations in the

nouns substantive, which denote objects so qualified.

In Latin, for example, lupus, lupa; equus, equa; juvencus,

juvenca; Julius, Julia; Lucretius, Lucretia,

&c. denote the qualities of male and female in the

396animals and persons to whom such appellations belong,

without needing the addition of any adjective

for this purpose. On the other hand, the words forum,

pratum, plaustrum, denote by their peculiar termination

the total absence of sex in the different substances

which they stand for. Both sex, and the want

of all sex, being naturally considered as qualities

modifying and inseparable from the particular substances

to which they belong, it was natural to express

them rather by a modification in the noun substantive,

than by any general and abstract word expressive

of this particular species of quality. The expression

bears, it is evident, in this way, a much more exact

analogy to the idea or object which it denotes, than

in the other. The quality appears, in nature, as a

modification of the substance, and as it is thus expressed,

in language, by a modification of the noun

substantive, which denotes that substance, the quality

and the subject are, in this case, blended together,

if I may say so, in the expression, in the same

manner, as they appear to be in the object and in the

idea. Hence the origin of the masculine, feminine,

and neutral genders, in all the ancient languages. By

means of these, the most important of all distinctions,

that of substances into animated and inanimated,

and that of animals into male and female, seem to

have been sufficiently marked without the assistance

of adjectives, or of any general names denoting this

most extensive species of qualifications.

There are no more than these three genders in

any of the languages with which I am acquainted;

that is to say, the formation of nouns substantive,

can, by itself, and without the accompaniment of adjectives,

397express no other qualities but those three

above-mentioned, the qualities of male, of female, of

neither male nor female. I should not, however,

be surprised, if, in other languages with which I am

unacquainted, the different formations of nouns substantive

should be capable of expressing many other

different qualities. The different diminutives of the

Italian, and of some other languages, do, in reality,

sometimes, express a great variety of different modifications

in the substances denoted by those nouns

which undergo such variations.

It was impossible, however, that nouns substantive

could, without losing altogether their original

form, undergo so great a number of variations, as

would be sufficient to express that almost infinite variety

of qualities, by which it might, upon different

occasions, be necessary to specify and distinguish

them. Though the different formation of nouns

substantive, therefore, might, for some time, forestall

the necessity of inventing nouns adjective, it was

impossible that this necessity could be forestalled altogether.

When nouns adjective came to be invented,

it was natural that they should be formed with some

similarity to the substantives, to which they were to

serve as epithets or qualifications. Men would naturally

give them the same terminations with the substantives

to which they were first applied, and from

that love of similarity of sound, from that delight in

the returns of the same syllables, which is in the

foundation of analogy in all languages, they would

be apt to vary the termination of the same adjective,

according as they had occasion to apply it to a masculine,

to a feminine, or to a neutral substantive.

398They would say, magnus lupus, magna lupa, magnum

pratum, when they meant to express a great he wolf,

a great she wolf, a great meadow.

This variation, in the termination of the noun

adjective, according to the gender of the substantive,

which takes place in all the ancient languages, seems

to have been introduced chiefly for the sake of a certain

similarity of sound, of a certain species of rhyme,

which is naturally so very agreeable to the human

ear. Gender, it is to be observed, cannot properly

belong to a noun adjective, the signification of which

is always precisely the same, to whatever species of

substantives it is applied. When we say, a great

man, a great woman, the word great has precisely the

same meaning in both cases, and the difference of the

sex in the subjects to which it may be applied, makes

no sort of difference in its signification. Magnus,

magna, magnum, in the same manner, are words

which express precisely the same quality, and the

change of the termination is accompanied with no

sort of variation in the meaning. Sex and gender are

qualities which belong to substances, but cannot belong

to the qualities of substances. In general, no

quality, when considered in concrete, or as qualifying

some particular subject, can itself be conceived as the

subject of any other quality; though when considered

in abstract it may. No adjective therefore

can qualify any other adjective. A great good man,

means a man who is both great and good. Both the

adjectives qualify the substantive; they do not qualify

one another. On the other hand, when we say,

the great goodness of the man, the word goodness denoting

a quality considered in abstract, which may itself

be the subject of other qualities, is upon that

399account capable of being qualified by the word,

great.

If the original invention of nouns adjective would

be attended with so much difficulty, that of prepositions

would be accompanied with yet more. Every

preposition, as I have already observed, denotes some

relation considered in concrete with the co-relative

object. The preposition above, for example, denotes

the relation of superiority, not in abstract, as it is

expressed by the word superiority, but in concrete

with some co-relative object. In this phrase, for example,

the tree above the cave, the word above, expresses

a certain relation between the tree and the

cave, and it expresses this relation in concrete with

the co-relative object, the cave. A preposition always

requires, in order to complete the sense, some

other word to come after it; as may be observed in

this particular instance. Now, I say, the original

invention of such words would require a yet greater

effort of abstraction and generalization, than that of

nouns adjective. First of all, a relation is, in itself,

a more metaphysical object than a quality. Nobody

can be at a loss to explain what is meant by a quality;

but few people will find themselves able to express,

very distinctly, what is understood by a relation.

Qualities are almost always the objects of our

external senses; relations never are. No wonder,

therefore, that the one set of objects should be so

much more comprehensible than the other. Secondly,

though prepositions always express the relation

which they stand for, in concrete with the co-relative

object, they could not have originally been formed

without a considerable effort of abstraction. A preposition

denotes a relation, and nothing but a relation.

400But before men could institute a word, which

signified a relation, and nothing but a relation,

they must have been able, in some measure, to consider

this relation abstractedly from the related objects;

since the idea of those objects does not, in any

respect, enter into the signification of the preposition.

The invention of such a word, therefore, must have

required a considerable degree of abstraction. Thirdly,

a preposition is from its nature a general word,

which, from its very first institution, must have

been considered as equally applicable to denote any

other similar relation. The man who first invented

the word above, must not only have distinguished, in

some measure, the relation of superiority from the objects

which were so related, but he must also have

distinguished this relation from other relations, such

as, from the relation of inferiority denoted by the

word below, from the relation of juxtaposition, expressed

by the word beside, and the like. He must

have conceived this word, therefore, as expressive of

a particular sort or species of relation distinct from

every other, which could not be done without a

considerable effort of comparison and generalization.

Whatever were the difficulties, therefore, which

embarrassed the first invention of nouns adjective,

the same, and many more, must have embarrassed

that of prepositions. If mankind, therefore, in the

first formation of languages, seem to have, for some

time, evaded the necessity of nouns adjective, by

varying the termination of the names of substances,

according as these varied in some of their most important

qualities, they would much more find themselves

under the necessity of evading, by some similar

contrivance, the yet more difficult invention of

401prepositions. The different cases in the ancient

languages is a contrivance of precisely the same kind.

The genitive and dative cases, in Greek and Latin,

evidently supply the place of the prepositions; and

by a variation in the noun substantive, which stands

for the co-relative term, express the relation which

subsists between what is denoted by that noun substantive,

and what is expressed by some other word

in the sentence. In these expressions, for example,

fructus arboris, the fruit of the tree; sacer Herculi,

sacred to Hercules; the variations made in the co-relative

words, arbor and Hercules, express the same

relations which are expressed in English by the prepositions

of and to.

To express a relation in this manner, did not require

any effort of abstraction. It was not here expressed

by a peculiar word denoting relation and nothing

but relation, but by a variation upon the co-relative

term. It was expressed here, as it appears in

nature, not as something separated and detached, but

as thoroughly mixed and blended with the co-relative

object.

To express relation in this manner, did not require

any effort of generalization. The words arboris and

Herculi, while they involve in their signification the

same relation expressed by the English prepositions

of and to, are not, like those prepositions, general

words, which can be applied to express the same relation

between whatever other objects it might be

observed to subsist.

To express relation in this manner did not require

any effort of comparison. The words arboris and

402Herculi are not general words intended to denote a

particular species of relations which the inventors of

those expressions meant, in consequence of some sort

of comparison, to separate and distinguish from

every other sort of relation. The example, indeed,

of this contrivance would soon probably be followed,

and whoever had occasion to express a similar

relation between any other objects would be very

apt to do it by making a similar variation on the

name of the co-relative object. This, I say, would

probably, or rather certainly happen; but it would

happen without any intention or foresight in those

who first set the example, and who never meant to

establish any general rule. The general rule would

establish itself insensibly, and by slow degrees, in

consequence of that love of analogy and similarity

of sound, which is the foundation of by far the

greater part of the rules of grammar.

To express relation therefore, by a variation in

the name of the co-relative object, requiring neither

abstraction, nor generalization, nor comparison of

any kind, would, at first, be much more natural and

easy, than to express it by those general words called

prepositions, of which the first invention must have

demanded some degree of all those operations.

The number of cases is different in different languages.

There are five in the Greek, six in the

Latin, and there are said to be ten in the Armenian

language. It must have naturally happened that

there should be a greater or a smaller number of

cases, according as in the terminations of nouns substantive

the first formers of any language happened

to have established a greater or a smaller number of

403variations, in order to express the different relations

they had occasion to take notice of, before the invention

of those more general and abstract prepositions

which could supply their place.

It is, perhaps, worth while to observe that those

prepositions, which in modern languages hold the

place of the ancient cases, are, of all others, the

most general, and abstract, and metaphysical; and

of consequence, would probably be the last invented.

Ask any man of common acuteness, What relation

is expressed by the preposition above? He will readily

answer, that of superiority. By the preposition below?

He will as quickly reply, that of inferiority. But ask

him, what relation is expressed by the preposition of,

and, if he has not beforehand employed his thoughts

a good deal upon these subjects, you may safely

allow him a week to consider of his answer. The

prepositions above and below do not denote any of

the relations expressed by the cases in the ancient

languages. But the preposition of, denotes the same

relation, which is in them expressed by the genitive

case; and which, it is easy to observe, is of a very

metaphysical nature. The preposition of, denotes

relation in general, considered in concrete with the

co-relative object. It marks that the noun substantive

which goes before it, is somehow or other

related to that which comes after it, but without in

any respect ascertaining, as is done by the preposition

above, what is the peculiar nature of that relation.

We often apply it, therefore, to express the most

opposite relations; because, the most opposite relations

agree so far that each of them comprehends in

it the general idea or nature of a relation. We say,

the father of the son, and the son of the father; the

404fir-trees of the forest, and the forest of the fir-trees.

The relation in which the father stands to the son,

is, it is evident, a quite opposite relation to that in

which the son stands to the father; that in which the

parts stand to the whole, is quite opposite to that in

which the whole stands to the parts. The word of,

however, serves very well to denote all those relations,

because in itself it denotes no particular relation,

but only relation in general; and so far as any

particular relation is collected from such expressions,

it is inferred by the mind, not from the preposition

itself, but from the nature and arrangement of the

substantives, between which the preposition is placed.

What I have said concerning the preposition of,

may in some measure be applied to the prepositions,

to, for, with, by, and to whatever other prepositions

are made use of in modern languages, to supply the

place of the ancient cases. They all of them express

very abstract and metaphysical relations, which

any man, who takes the trouble to try it, will find

it extremely difficult to express by nouns substantive,

in the same manner as we may express the relation

denoted by the preposition above, by the noun substantive

superiority. They all of them, however, express

some specific relation, and are, consequently,

none of them so abstract as the preposition of,

which may be regarded as by far the most metaphysical

of all prepositions. The prepositions therefore,

which are capable of supplying the place of

the ancient cases, being more abstract than the other

prepositions, would naturally be of more difficult

invention. The relations at the same time which

those prepositions express, are, of all others, those

which we have most frequent occasion to mention.

405The prepositions above, below, near, within, without,

against, &c. are much more rarely made use of, in

modern languages, than the prepositions of, to, for,

with, from, by. A preposition of the former kind

will not occur twice in a page; we can scarce compose

a single sentence without the assistance of one

or two of the latter. If these latter prepositions,

therefore, which supply the place of the cases,

would be of such difficult invention on account of

their abstractedness, some expedient, to supply their

place, must have been of indispensable necessity, on

account of the frequent occasion which men have to

take notice of the relations which they denote. But

there is no expedient so obvious, as that of varying

the termination of one of the principal words.

It is, perhaps, unnecessary to observe, that there

are some of the cases in the ancient languages, which,

for particular reasons, cannot be represented by any

prepositions. These are the nominative, accusative,

and vocative cases. In those modern languages,

which do not admit of any such variety in the terminations

of their nouns substantive, the correspondent

relations are expressed by the place of the

words, and by the order and construction of the sentence.

As men have frequently occasion to make mention

of multitudes as well as of single objects, it

became necessary that they should have some method

of expressing number. Number may be expressed

either by a particular word, expressing number in

general, such as the words many, more, &c. or by

some variation upon the words which express the

things numbered. It is this last expedient which

406mankind would probably have recourse to, in the

infancy of language. Number, considered in general,

without relation to any particular set of objects

numbered, is one of the most abstract and metaphysical

ideas, which the mind of man is capable

of forming; and, consequently, is not an idea,

which would readily occur to rude mortals, who

were just beginning to form a language. They

would naturally, therefore, distinguish when they

talked of a single, and when they talked of a multitude

of objects, not by any metaphysical adjectives,

such as the English, a, an, many, but by a variation

upon the termination of the word which signified

the objects numbered. Hence the origin of the

singular and plural numbers, in all the ancient languages;

and the same distinction has likewise been

retained in all the modern languages, at least, in the

greater part of words.

All primitive and uncompounded languages seem

to have a dual, as well as a plural number. This

is the case of the Greek, and I am told of the Hebrew,

of the Gothic, and of many other languages.

In the rude beginnings of society, one, two, and more,

might possibly be all the numeral distinctions which

mankind would have any occasion to take notice of.

These they would find it more natural to express,

by a variation upon every particular noun substantive,

than by such general and abstract words as one,

two, three, four, &c. These words, though custom

has rendered them familiar to us, express, perhaps,

the most subtile and refined abstractions, which the

mind of man is capable of forming. Let any one

consider within himself, for example, what he means

407by the word three, which signifies neither three shillings,

nor three pence, nor three men, nor three

horses, but three in general; and he will easily satisfy

himself that a word, which denotes so very metaphysical

an abstraction, could not be either a very

obvious or a very early invention. I have read of some

savage nations, whose language was capable of expressing

no more than the three first numeral distinctions.

But whether it expressed those distinctions by

three general words, or by variations upon the nouns

substantive, denoting the things numbered, I do

not remember to have met with any thing which

could determine.

As all the same relations which subsist between

single, may likewise subsist between numerous objects,

it is evident there would be occasion for the

same number of cases in the dual and in the plural,

as in the singular number. Hence the intricacy and

complexness of the declensions in all the ancient

languages. In the Greek there are five cases in

each of the three numbers, consequently fifteen

in all.

As nouns adjective, in the ancient languages,

varied their terminations according to the gender of

the substantive to which they were applied, so did

they likewise, according to the case and the number.

Every noun adjective in the Greek language, therefore,

having three genders, and three numbers, and

five cases in each number, may be considered as

having five and forty different variations. The first

formers of language seem to have varied the termination

of the adjective, according to the case and

the number of the substantive, for the same reason

408which made them vary according to the gender; the

love of analogy, and of a certain regularity of sound.

In the signification of adjectives there is neither case

nor number, and the meaning of such words is

always precisely the same, notwithstanding all the

variety of termination under which they appear.

Magnus vir, magni viri, magnorum virorum; a great

man, of a great man, of great men in all these expressions

the words magnus, magni, magnorum, as well

as the word great, have precisely one and the same

signification, though the substantives to which they

are applied have not. The difference of termination

in the noun adjective is accompanied with no

sort of difference in the meaning. An adjective

denotes the qualification of a noun substantive. But

the different relations in which that noun substantive

may occasionally stand, can make no sort of difference

upon its qualification.

If the declensions of the ancient languages are

so very complex, their conjugations are infinitely

more so. And the complexness of the one is founded

upon the same principle with that of the other, the

difficulty of forming, in the beginnings of language,

abstract and general terms.

Verbs must necessarily have been coeval with the

very first attempts towards the formation of language.

No affirmation can be expressed without the

assistance of some verb. We never speak but in order

to express our opinion that something either is or

is not. But the word denoting this event, or this

matter of fact, which is the subject of our affirmation,

must always be a verb.

409Impersonal verbs, which express in one word a

complete event, which preserve in the expression that

perfect simplicity and unity, which there always is in

the object and in the idea, and which suppose no abstraction,

or metaphysical division of the event into

its several constituent members of subject and attribute,

would, in all probability, be the species of

verbs first invented. The verbs pluit, it rains; ningit,

it snows; tonat, it thunders; lucet, it is day;

turbatur, there is a confusion, &c. each of them express

a complete affirmation, the whole of an event,

with that perfect simplicity and unity with which

the mind conceives it in nature. On the contrary, the

phrases, Alexander ambulat, Alexander walks; Petrus

sedet, Peter sits, divide the event, as it were, into two

parts, the person or subject, and the attribute, or

matter of fact, affirmed of that subject. But in nature,

the idea or conception of Alexander walking, is

as perfectly and completely one single conception, as

that of Alexander not walking. The division of

this event, therefore, into two parts, is altogether artificial,

and is the effect of the imperfection of language,

which, upon this, as upon many other occasions,

supplies, by a number of words, the want of

one, which could express at once the whole matter of

fact that was meant to be affirmed. Every body

must observe how much more simplicity there is in

the natural expression, pluit, than in the more artificial

expressions, imber decidit, the rain falls; or,

tempestas est pluvia, the weather is rainy. In these

two last expressions, the simple event, or matter of

fact, is artificially split and divided, in the one, into

two; in the other, into three parts. In each of them

it is expressed by a sort of grammatical circumlocution,

410of which the significancy is founded upon a

certain metaphysical analysis of the component parts

of the idea expressed by the word pluit. The first

verbs, therefore, perhaps even the first words, made

use of in the beginnings of language, would in all

probability be such impersonal verbs. It is observed

accordingly, I am told, by the Hebrew Grammarians,

that the radical words of their language, from

which all the others are derived, are all of them

verbs, and impersonal verbs.

It is easy to conceive how, in the progress of language,

those impersonal verbs should become personal.

Let us suppose, for example, that the word

venit, it comes, was originally an impersonal verb,

and that it denoted, not the coming of something in

general, as at present, but the coming of a particular

object, such as the Lion. The first savage inventors

of language, we shall suppose, when they observed

the approach of this terrible animal, were accustomed

to cry out to one another, venit, that is, the lion

comes; and that this word thus expressed a complete

event, without the assistance of any other. Afterwards,

when, on the further progress of language,

they had begun to give names to particular substances,

whenever they observed the approach of

any other terrible object, they would naturally join

the name of that object to the word venit, and cry

out, venit ursus, venit lupus. By degrees the word

venit would thus come to signify the coming of any

terrible object, and not merely the coming of the

lion. It would now therefore, express, not the coming

of a particular object, but the coming of an object

of a particular kind. Having become more general

in its signification, it could no longer represent

411any particular distinct event by itself, and without

the assistance of a noun substantive, which might

serve to ascertain and determine its signification. It

would now, therefore, have become a personal, instead

of an impersonal verb. We may easily conceive

how, in the further progress of society, it might

still grow more general in its signification, and come

to signify, as at present, the approach of any thing

whatever, whether good, bad, or indifferent.

It is probably in some such manner as this, that

almost all verbs have become personal, and that

mankind have learned by degrees to split and divide

almost every event into a great number of metaphysical

parts, expressed by the different parts of speech,

variously combined in the different members of every

phrase and sentence.[29] The same sort of progress

seems to have been made in the art of speaking as

in the art of writing. When mankind first began to

attempt to express their ideas by writing, every character

represented a whole word. But the number

of words being almost infinite, the memory found

itself quite loaded and oppressed by the multitude of

412characters which it was obliged to retain. Necessity

taught them, therefore, to divide words into their

elements, and to invent characters which should represent,

not the words themselves, but the elements

of which they were composed. In consequence of

this invention, every particular word came to be represented,

not by one character, but by a multitude

of characters; and the expression of it in writing became

much more intricate and complex than before.

But though particular words were thus represented

by a greater number of characters, the whole language

was expressed by a much smaller, and about

four and twenty letters were found capable of supplying

the place of that immense multitude of characters,

which were requisite before. In the same

manner, in the beginnings of language, men seem to

have attempted to express every particular event,

which they had occasion to take notice of, by a particular

word, which expressed at once the whole of

that event. But as the number of words must, in

this case, have become really infinite, in consequence

of the really infinite variety of events, men found

themselves partly compelled by necessity, and partly

conducted by nature, to divide every event into

what may be called its metaphysical elements, and to

institute words, which should denote not so much

the events, as the elements of which they were composed.

The expression of every particular event,

became in this manner more intricate and complex,

but the whole system of the language became more

coherent, more connected, more easily retained and

comprehended.

29. As the far greater part of Verbs express, at present, not an

event, but the attribute of an event, and, consequently, require

a subject, or nominative case, to complete their signification,

some grammarians, not having attended to this progress of nature,

and being desirous to make their common rules quite universal,

and without any exception, have insisted that all verbs required a

nominative, either expressed or understood; and have, accordingly

put themselves to the torture to find some awkward nominatives

to those few verbs, which still expressing a complete event,

plainly admit of none. Pluit, for example, according to Sanctius,

means pluvia pluit, in English, the rain rains. See Sanctii Minerva,

l. 3. c. 1.

When verbs, from being originally impersonal had

thus, by the division of the event into its metaphysical

413elements, become personal, it is natural to suppose

that they would first be made use of in the third

person singular. No verb is ever used impersonally

in our language, nor, so far as I know, in any other

modern tongue. But in the ancient languages,

whenever any verb is used impersonally, it is always

in the third person singular. The termination of

those verbs, which are still always impersonal, is

constantly the same with that of the third person singular

of personal verbs. The consideration of these

circumstances, joined to the naturalness of the thing

itself, may serve to convince us that verbs first became

personal in what is now called the third person

singular.

But as the event, or matter of fact, which is expressed

by a verb, may be affirmed either of the person

who speaks, or of the person who is spoken to,

as well as of some third person or object, it became

necessary to fall upon some method of expressing

these two peculiar relations of the event. In the

English language this is commonly done, by prefixing,

what are called the personal pronouns, to the

general word which expresses the event affirmed.

I came, you came, he or it came; in these phrases the

event of having come is, in the first, affirmed of the

speaker; in the second, of the person spoken to; in

the third, of some other person, or object. The first

formers of language, it may be imagined, might have

done the same thing, and prefixing in the same manner

the two first personal pronouns, to the same termination

of the verb, which expressed the third person

singular, might have said, ego venit, tu venit,

as well as ille or illud venit. And I make no doubt

414but they would have done so, if at the time when

they had first occasion to express these relations of the

verb, there had been any such words as either ego or

tu in their language. But in this early period of the

language, which we are now endeavouring to describe,

it is extremely improbable that any such

words would be known. Though custom has now

rendered them familiar to us, they, both of them,

express ideas extremely metaphysical and abstract.

The word I, for example, is a word of a very particular

species. Whatever speaks may denote itself by

this personal pronoun. The word I, therefore, is a

general word, capable of being predicated, as the logicians

say, of an infinite variety of objects. It differs,

however, from all other general words in this

respect; that the objects of which it may be predicated,

do not form any particular species of objects

distinguished from all others. The word I, does

not, like the word man, denote a particular class of

objects, separated from all others by peculiar qualities

of their own. It is far from being the name of

a species, but, on the contrary, whenever it is made

use of, it always denotes a precise individual, the particular

person who then speaks. It may be said to

be, at once, both what the logicians call, a singular,

and what they call, a common term; and to join in

its signification the seemingly opposite qualities of the

most precise individuality, and the most extensive

generalization. This word, therefore, expressing so

very abstract and metaphysical an idea, would not

easily or readily occur to the first formers of language.

What are called the personal pronouns, it may be

observed, are among the last words of which children

learn to make use. A child, speaking of itself,

415says, Billy walks, Billy sits, instead of I walk, I sit.

As in the beginnings of language, therefore, mankind

seem to have evaded the invention of at least the

more abstract proportions, and to have expressed the

same relations which these now stand for, by varying

the termination of the co-relative term, so they

likewise would naturally attempt to evade the necessity

of inventing those more abstract pronouns by varying

the termination of the verb, according as the

event which it expressed was intended to be affirmed

of the first, second, or third person. This seems,

accordingly, to be the universal practice of all the

ancient languages. In Latin, veni, venisti, venit, sufficiently

denote, without any other addition, the different

events expressed by the English phrases, I

came, you came, he, or it came. The verb would,

for the same reason, vary its termination, according

as the event was intended to be affirmed of the first,

second, or third persons plural; and what is expressed

by the English phrases, we came, ye came, they came,

would be denoted by the Latin words, venimus, venistis,

venerunt. Those primitive languages, too,

which, upon account of the difficulty of inventing

numeral names, had introduced a dual, as well as a

plural number, into the declension of their nouns

substantive, would probably, from analogy, do the

same thing in the conjugations of their verbs. And

thus in all those original languages, we might expect

to find, at least six, if not eight or nine variations,

in the termination of every verb, according

as the event which it denoted was meant to be affirmed

of the first, second, or third persons singular,

dual, or plural. These variations again being repeated,

along with others, through all its different

tenses, modes and voices, must necessarily

416have rendered their conjugations still more intricate

and complex than their declensions.

Language would probably have continued upon

this footing in all countries, nor would ever have

grown more simple in its declensions and conjugations,

had it not become more complex in its composition,

in consequence of the mixture of several languages

with one another, occasioned by the mixture

of different nations. As long as any language was

spoke by those only who learned it in their infancy,

the intricacy of its declensions and conjugations

could occasion no great embarrassment. The far

greater part of those who had occasion to speak it,

had acquired it at so very early a period of their

lives, so insensibly and by such slow degrees, that

they were scarce ever sensible of the difficulty. But

when two nations came to be mixed with one another,

either by conquest or migration, the case

would be very different. Each nation, in order to

make itself intelligible to those with whom it was

under the necessity of conversing, would be obliged

to learn the language of the other. The greater part

of individuals too, learning the new language, not

by art, or by remounting to its rudiments and first

principles, but by rote, and by what they commonly

heard in conversation, would be extremely perplexed

by the intricacy of its declensions and conjugations.

They would endeavour, therefore, to supply their

ignorance of these, by whatever shift the language

could afford them. Their ignorance of the declensions

they would naturally supply by the use of prepositions;

and a Lombard, who was attempting to

speak Latin, and wanted to express that such a person

was a citizen of Rome, or a benefactor to Rome,

417if he happened not to be acquainted with the genitive

and dative cases of the word Roma, would naturally

express himself by prefixing the prepositions ad

and de to the nominative; and, instead of Romæ,

would say, ad Roma, and de Roma. Al Roma and

di Roma, accordingly, is the manner in which the

present Italians, the descendants of the ancient Lombards

and Romans, express this and all other similar

relations. And in this manner prepositions seem to

have been introduced, in the room of the ancient

declensions. The same alteration has, I am informed,

been produced upon the Greek language, since the

taking of Constantinople by the Turks. The words

are, in a great measure, the same as before; but

the grammar is entirely lost, prepositions having

come in the place of the old declensions. This

change is undoubtedly a simplification of the language,

in point of rudiments and principle. It introduces,

instead of a great variety of declensions, one

universal declension, which is the same in every

word, of whatever gender, number, or termination.

A similar expedient enables men, in the situation

above-mentioned, to get rid of almost the whole intricacy

of their conjugations. There is in every

language a verb, known by the name of the substantive

verb; in Latin, sum; in English, I am. This

verb denotes not the existence of any particular

event, but existence in general. It is, upon this

account, the most abstract and metaphysical of all

verbs; and, consequently, could by no means be a

a word of early invention. When it came to be invented,

however, as it had all the tenses and modes

of any other verb, by being joined with the passive

participle, it was capable of supplying the place of

418the whole passive voice, and of rendering this part of

their conjugations as simple and uniform, as the use

of prepositions had rendered their declensions. A

Lombard, who wanted to say, I am loved, but could

not recollect the word amor, naturally endeavoured

to supply his ignorance, by saying, ego sum amatus.

Io sono amato, is at this day the Italian expression,

which corresponds to the English phrase above-mentioned.

There is another verb, which, in the same manner,

runs through all languages, and which is distinguished

by the name of the possessive verb; in Latin,

habeo; in English, I have. This verb, likewise, denotes

an event of an extremely abstract and metaphysical

nature, and, consequently, cannot be supposed

to have been a word of the earliest invention. When

it came to be invented, however, by being applied

to the passive participle, it was capable of supplying

a great part of the active voice, as the substantive

verb had supplied the whole of the passive. A Lombard,

who wanted to say, I had loved, but could not

recollect the word amaveram, would endeavour to

supply the place of it, by saying either ego habebam

amatum, or ego habui amatum. Io avevá amato, or

Io ebbi amato, are the correspondent Italian expressions

at this day. And thus upon the intermixture of

different nations with one another, the conjugations,

by means of different auxiliary verbs, were made

to approach towards the simplicity and uniformity of

the declensions.

In general it may be laid down for a maxim, that

the more simple any language is in its composition,

419the more complex it must be in its declensions and

conjugations; and, on the contrary, the more simple

it is in its declensions and conjugations, the more

complex it must be in its composition.

The Greek seems to be, in a great measure, a

simple, uncompounded language, formed from the

primitive jargon of those wandering savages, the ancient

Hellenians and Pelasgians, from whom the

Greek nation is said to have been descended. All

the words in the Greek language are derived from

about three hundred primitives, a plain evidence

that the Greeks formed their language almost entirely

among themselves, and that when they had occasion

for a new word, they were not accustomed, as we

are, to borrow it from some foreign language, but to

form it, either by composition or derivation from

some other word or words, in their own. The declensions

and conjugations, therefore, of the Greek

are much more complex than those of any other European

language with which I am acquainted.

The Latin is a composition of the Greek and of

the ancient Tuscan languages. Its declensions and

conjugations accordingly are much less complex than

those of the Greek: it has dropt the dual number in

both. Its verbs have no optative mood distinguished

by any peculiar termination. They have but one

future. They have no aorist distinct from the preterit-perfect;

they have no middle voice; and even

many of their tenses in the passive voice are eked out,

in the same manner as in the modern languages, by

the help of the substantive verb joined to the passive

participle. In both the voices, the number of infinitives

420and participles is much smaller in the Latin

than in the Greek.

The French and Italian languages are each of

them compounded, the one of the Latin, and the

language of the ancient Franks, the other of the same

Latin and the language of the ancient Lombards.

As they are both of them, therefore, more complex

in their composition than the Latin, so are they likewise

more simple in their declensions and conjugations.

With regard to their declensions, they have

both of them lost their cases altogether; and with

regard to their conjugations, they have both of them

lost the whole of the passive, and some part of the

active voices of their verbs. The want of the passive

voice they supply entirely by the substantive verb

joined to the passive participle; and they make out

part of the active, in the same manner, by the help

of the possessive verb and the same passive participle.

The English is compounded of the French and

the ancient Saxon languages. The French was introduced

into Britain by the Norman conquest, and

continued, till the time of Edward III. to be the

sole language of the law as well as the principal

language of the court. The English, which came

to be spoken afterwards, and which continues to be

spoken now, is a mixture of the ancient Saxon and

this Norman French. As the English language,

therefore, is more complex in its composition than

either the French or the Italian, so is it likewise more

simple in its declensions and conjugations. Those

two languages retain, at least, a part of the distinction

of genders, and their adjectives vary their termination

421according as they are applied to a masculine

or to a feminine substantive. But there is no

such distinction in the English language, whose adjectives

admit of no variety of termination. The

French and Italian languages have, both of them,

the remains of a conjugation, and all those tenses of

the active voice, which cannot be expressed by the

possessive verb joined to the passive participle, as well

as many of those which can, are, in those languages,

marked by varying the termination of the principal

verb. But almost all those other tenses are in the

English eked out by other auxiliary verbs, so that

there is in this language scarce even the remains of a

conjugation. I love, I loved, loving, are all the varieties

of termination which the greater part of English

verbs admit of. All the different modifications

of meaning, which cannot be expressed by any of

those three terminations, must be made out by different

auxiliary verbs joined to some one or other of

them. Two auxiliary verbs supply all the deficiencies

of the French and Italian conjugations; it requires

more than half a dozen to supply those of the

English, which besides the substantive and possessive

verbs, makes use of do, did; will, would; shall,

should; can, could; may, might.

It is in this manner that language becomes more

simple in its rudiments and principles, just in proportion

as it grows more complex in its composition,

and the same thing has happened in it, which commonly

happens with regard to mechanical engines.

All machines are generally, when first invented, extremely

complex in their principles, and there is often

a particular principle of motion for every particular

422movement which, it is intended, they should

perform. Succeeding improvers observe, that one

principle may be so applied as to produce several of

those movements, and thus the machine becomes

gradually more and more simple, and produces its

effects with fewer wheels, and fewer principles of

motion. In language, in the same manner, every

case of every noun, and every tense of every verb,

was originally expressed by a particular distinct word,

which served for this purpose and for no other. But

succeeding observation discovered that one set of

words was capable of supplying the place of all that

infinite number, and that four or five prepositions,

and half a dozen auxiliary verbs, were capable of

answering the end of all the declensions, and of all

the conjugations in the ancient languages.

But this simplification of languages, though it

arises, perhaps, from similar causes, has by no means

similar effects with the correspondent simplification of

machines. The simplification of machines renders

them more and more perfect, but this simplification

of the rudiments of languages renders them more and

more imperfect and less proper for many of the purposes

of language: and this for the following reasons.

First of all, languages are by this simplification

rendered more prolix, several words having become

necessary to express what could have been expressed

by a single word before. Thus the words, Dei and,

Deo, in the Latin, sufficiently show, without any addition,

what relation, the object signified is understood

to stand in to the objects expressed by the

other words in the sentence. But to express the same

423relation in English, and in all other modern languages,

we must make use of, at least, two words, and say,

of God, to God. So far as the declensions are concerned,

therefore, the modern languages are much

more prolix than the ancient. The difference is still

greater with regard to the conjugations. What a

Roman expressed by the single word, amavissem, an

Englishman is obliged to express by four different

words, I should have loved. It is unnecessary to

take any pains to show how much this prolixness

must enervate the eloquence of all modern languages.

How much the beauty of any expression depends

upon its conciseness, is well known to those who

have any experience in composition.

Secondly, this simplification of the principles of

languages renders them less agreeable to the ear.

The variety of termination in the Greek and Latin,

occasioned by their declensions and conjugations,

give a sweetness to their language altogether unknown

to ours, and a variety unknown to any other

modern language. In point of sweetness, the Italian,

perhaps, may surpass the Latin, and almost

equal the Greek; but in point of variety, it is greatly

inferior to both.

Thirdly, this simplification, not only renders the

sounds of our language less agreeable to the ear,

but it also restrains us from disposing such sounds

as we have, in the manner that might be most agreeable.

It ties down many words to a particular situation,

though they might often be placed in another

with much more beauty. In the Greek and Latin,

though the adjective and substantive were separated

424from one another, the correspondence of their terminations

still showed their mutual reference, and the

separation did not necessarily occasion any sort of

confusion. Thus in the first line of Virgil:

Tityre tu patulæ recubans sub tegmine fagi.

We easily see that tu refers to recubans, and patulæ

to fagi; though the related words are separated

from one another by the intervention of several

others: because the terminations, showing the correspondence

of their cases, determine their mutual

reference. But if we were to translate this line literally

into English, and say, Tityrus, thou of spreading

reclining under the shade beech, Œdipus himself could

not make sense of it; because there is here no difference

of termination, to determine which substantive

each adjective belongs to. It is the same

case with regard to verbs. In Latin the verb may

often be placed, without an inconveniency or ambiguity,

in any part of the sentence. But in English

its place is almost always precisely determined. It

must follow the subjective and precede the objective

member of the phrase in almost all cases. Thus in

Latin whether you say, Joannem verberavit Robertus,

or Robertus verberavit Joannem, the meaning is precisely

the same, and the termination fixes John to be

the sufferer in both cases. But in English John beat

Robert, and Robert beat John, have by no means the

same signification. The place therefore of the three

principal members of the phrase is in the English,

and for the same reason in the French and Italian

languages almost always precisely determined;

whereas in the ancient languages a greater latitude is

425allowed, and the place of those members is often, in

a great measure, indifferent. We must have recourse

to Horace, in order to interpret some parts of Milton’s

literal translation;

Who now enjoys thee credulous all gold,

Who always vacant, always amiable

Hopes thee; of flattering gales

Unmindful.

are verses which it is impossible to interpret by any

rules of our language. There are no rules in our

language, by which any man could discover, that,

in the first line, credulous referred to who, and not to

thee; or, that all gold referred to any thing; or, that

in the fourth line, unmindful, referred to who, in the

second, and not to thee in the third; or, on the contrary,

that, in the second line always vacant, always

amiable, referred to thee in the third, and not to who

in the same line with it. In the Latin, indeed, all

this is abundantly plain.

Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aureâ,

Qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem

Sperat te; nescius auræ fallacis.

Because the terminations in the Latin determine the

reference of each adjective to its proper substantive,

which it is impossible for any thing in the English to

do. How much this power of transposing the order

of their words must have facilitated the composition

of the ancients, both in verse and prose, can hardly

be imagined. That it must greatly have facilitated

their versification it is needless to observe; and in

426prose, whatever beauty depends upon the arrangement

and construction of the several members of the

period, must to them have been acquirable with

much more ease, and to much greater perfection,

than it can be to those whose expression is constantly

confined by the prolixness, constraint and monotony

of modern languages.

FINIS.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.

Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.

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